tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-913317630466767423.post5862741938145285144..comments2017-03-31T19:30:38.301-07:00Comments on Better Problems: Questions of Composition: The Working Class, the IWW and the GDCJohn O'Reillynoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-913317630466767423.post-20656542083336392612017-03-31T19:30:38.301-07:002017-03-31T19:30:38.301-07:00I reiterate that the important point to me is that...I reiterate that the important point to me is that we agree on the centrality of the workplace organizing strategy of attacking capitalism, and the importance of having worker organizations capable of supporting the working class in that fight. I suspect some of us still disagree on whether the GDC should be that organization. I feel strongly that it should be, since divorcing a community self defense organization from an anti-capitalist focus associated with a radical and horizontally democratic union isn&#39;t a project I&#39;d want to involve myself in, and I suspect the organization would quickly split into sections, and the organization itself degenerative into a form of reactive liberalism.<br /><br />The last thing, and the one area where I think I might make my own contribution to this discussion, is in the area of diversity, unions, attitudes, and membership. Both M** and E****** nicely pointed out that while this particular article highlights the way in which the Twin Cities GDC has actually improved the diversity of interest and membership in the Twin Cities GMB, the GDC model is not primarily oriented to this goal. It is, as the name states, a Defense organization, though there remains a great deal of confusion about the term &#39;defense,&#39; as Max has gone to pains to remind folks.<br /><br />On this question of diversity in unions, I want to briefly make a few points. First, [BetterProblems] article seems to me to make an argumentative shift of context that changes the discussion from what I’d intended to something quite different; I was talking about - I had thought it was clear throughout my first piece; apparently not - about the general lack of diversity within the IWW as an organization. We shouldn’t switch registers between the union movement as a whole and the IWW in particular when we discuss these points, I think. Or at least, be quite careful when we do, so we don’t mislead ourselves. In other words, we shouldn’t conflate the diversity of unionized workers in the USA with the diversity of the IWW. <br /><br />We are a heavily white male organization, and I think we might all agree that this at least poses real challenges for the IWW, and shouldn’t be ignored as an issue. I was not talking about unions as a whole in the USA, nor about worker attitudes towards unions to which they might belong. I do quote the BLS figure of 11.1% union membership in the USA, which appears to be the jumping off point for [BetterProblems]&#39; intervention.<br /><br />Second, [BetterProblems] correctly points out important and useful details about the composition of the unionized working class in the USA, specifically that the greatest level of union membership is in Public Sector Unions, and that these have a diversity that is higher than that of the class as a whole. <br /><br />Particularly, the public sector union transformations and the way in which this, along with the destruction of private sector unions (not mentioned) have resulted in a higher-than-representational level of diversity in these union sectors. This doesn’t particularly deal with the same issues as those I raised in the original piece regarding diversity in the IWW, however.<br /><br />Let’s imagine a Latino worker in a public sector union. This worker receives higher wages, benefits, and job security as a consequence of being a member of this union. That they might generally support and value a union in their workplace is hardly surprising. It also doesn’t mean that if this worker is harassed or targeted on their job for being Latino, perhaps even by a unionized supervisor, the union will have their back. These are different things, and the particularities differ from local to local, and union to union. It definitely doesn’t mean that this union will take any steps, or feel any obligation, to defend its workers in their homes or neighborhoods, if it is anti-immigrant paramilitaries showing up. These are things that affect who gets to access the power we agree is most highly leveraged for the working class at the point of production.Erik Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15983907316708832481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-913317630466767423.post-22567999145187710622017-03-31T19:27:57.056-07:002017-03-31T19:27:57.056-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Erik Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15983907316708832481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-913317630466767423.post-33966710175075281152017-03-31T19:27:17.857-07:002017-03-31T19:27:17.857-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Erik Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15983907316708832481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-913317630466767423.post-1627184248945851302017-03-31T19:27:07.245-07:002017-03-31T19:27:07.245-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Erik Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15983907316708832481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-913317630466767423.post-21465003403296106012017-03-31T19:26:43.070-07:002017-03-31T19:26:43.070-07:00(3) I think similar definitional work on the terms...(3) I think similar definitional work on the terms &quot;class struggle,&quot; &quot;anarchism,&quot; &quot;communism,&quot; and &quot;workerism&quot; would be useful, to have productive conversations about these. While I didn&#39;t use the term workerism myself in the article to which you respond (one quoted person did), I think simply asserting that &#39;workerism&#39; is the same thing as &#39;communism&#39; or &#39;anarchism&#39; doesn&#39;t help this discussion. <br /><br />Similarly, depending on how one defines &quot;Class Struggle,&quot; the location of that struggle will be obviously different. If &quot;Class Struggle&quot; is limited to the struggles workers take relative to their employers at the point of production, your assertion that the workplace is the only place that class struggle takes place is obviously true, though I wonder how a workplace organizing committee meeting outside work hours or the workplace would qualify in that case. It’s also difficult to know how this strategy intends to deal with the increasing automation and mechanization of industry. The exaggeration of these threats have been constant for more than a century, but it is also true that these threats have massively transformed both individual economies and the global one, moving productive work out of former industrial heartlands (to find lower wages), leaving only the service jobs that frankly often are irreplaceable not because of the inability to automate the task, but because of the social work of status difference that such jobs are often tasked with (see ‘emotional labor,’ e.g.).<br /><br />Similarly, it’s hard to know what to do with the IWW insistence on organizing not only the actively employed working class, but the unemployed (Marx’s “Industrial Reserve Army,” for the most part), with this notion of class struggle. On the other hand, if &quot;Class Struggle&quot; is the struggle of the working class against the employing class, and includes those moves necessary to support that class&#39; ability to thrive and organize, while defending and preserving them, then a different location for &quot;Class Struggle&quot; is obvious. I don&#39;t think any single person, including myself, gets to easily declare a definition for a term so central to so many as class struggle.<br /><br />(4) E****** does a particularly good job describing the way in which the GDC very clearly adapts the Solidarity Unionism model to other locations where the working class experiences struggle and attack. Erik Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15983907316708832481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-913317630466767423.post-68314826037854101992017-03-31T19:26:21.819-07:002017-03-31T19:26:21.819-07:00It&#39;s good to have this piece out for people to...It&#39;s good to have this piece out for people to read. I&#39;ve been forced off of facebook because of the toxicity and poor behavior. However, your readers should know that a response to this essay was published on facebook on December 31st, 2016. Some names have been anonymized.<br /><br />that response is below:<br /><br />Awhile back, I wrote a piece about how the Twin Cities GDC has improved diversity within the Twin Cities GDC. That piece can be read here. <br />[BetterProblems] wrote a response to that piece, which can be read here.<br /><br />A discussion commenced on facebook, which some of you can read here, but many will not be able to.<br />Hey [BetterProblems] and all; finally getting back to this. <br /><br />First off, thanks to [BetterProblems] for writing it, and to everyone for engaging the discussion. It&#39;s nice to begin a more specific form of engagement on these issues. I am very happy that we agree in general that the IWW is the center of our revolutionary anti-capitalist vision, and the GDC an important and necessary part of sustaining and defending that revolution. I think it&#39;s likely we have different reasons for agreeing on those points, but point out that for myself, that&#39;s the crucial point.<br /><br />E***** and M** do a better job than I probably could have of articulating most of my thoughts and responses to Brendan’s article (with one exception, below). I want to highlight these important points they made:<br /><br />(1) the mischaracterization of GDC Community Self Defense with &quot;Armed Self Defense.&quot; This is an example of a metonymy error (mistaking one aspect of a thing for its whole): certainly we support those who would take up arms in defense of the working class and the class&#39; communities, but that&#39;s not the same thing as those two being co-terminal. We’ve made this clear a lot, and I’ll confess I find the continued misrepresentations/misunderstandings pretty frustrating. <br /><br />(2) like M** and [Better Problems], I find category definition crucial to any useful discussion, so I&#39;m grateful for the definitional work. At the same time, I think Max points out that being able to define the categories as separate is not the same thing as people belonging solely to one category or another. Most of us overlap categories. That overlapping of categories tends to be most comfortable, and hence least observable, to people (like myself and yourself) who have the most varied forms of social power (I&#39;m white, cis, male, from a multi-generational college educated family, etc., etc.). The limits of our own perception is something we should keep in mind.Erik Davishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15983907316708832481noreply@blogger.com